The Very Sad Story Of Laika The Dog. How Could The Russians Do This? Hard To Watch

Back in 1957 after she was launched into space on the Russian satellite Sputnik 2, she became incredibly famous. Animal rights advocates and dog lovers around the world protested what had happened to her. At the time, the Russians lied about her death and for a while indicated that she was alive and well. The best speculation is that she died on takeoff and not pleasantly. Several chimpanzees had already died in NASA's experiments and an unknown number of animals also died at the hands of the Russians.
The space race was indeed a race. It had political and social and economic and scientific high stakes involved. Pres. Kennedy said we were going to beat the Russians in space and become the first humans to land on the moon, and within 10 years. The Russians had been the leaders in rocketry going back to the early 20th century. You can find many documentaries on this subject on my KZbin channel by searching the word "NASA" on my KZbin channel.
At the time, as a teenager in high school, with a wonderful dog that was my pet at home, I was very disturbed by this story. We had already been told by national Democratic political leaders that what the Russians were doing was terrifying and that they could attack us using ICBMs and that very shortly, they could put military soldiers in space and that wars would be fought in space. Pres. Eisenhower didn't buy that whole story and made sure that NASA was set up as a civilian rather than military organization. But that's another story which you can also find on my KZbin channel.
To see it go to • This Dog Story Makes M... where you will see a portion of my feature documentary, Sputnik Mania, made about this time and about Laika. You might want to see this clip on Ham, America's first chimpanzee in space - • Smart Chimp Proved Hum...